Talk:Living World Season 1

Nice summary on reddit

I just found this nice summary ( http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1iknsq/where_can_i_find_a_summary_of_the_living_story_to/ ) on reddit. Might be nice to merge it within this article. 80.112.204.26 11:32, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

When I get home ill edit this to have two summaries, one from a pure lore perspective, the other to tell players actions. On vacation now so somewhat difficult to do from my phone 166.147.120.176 11:47, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Lost Shores

If someone would be willing to write up a section for Lost Shores, perhaps just worrying about the parts that affect the Living World that would be great because I was out of town the weekend of that event Indigo121 (talk) 11:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it would probably be interresting to insert Shadow of the Mad King, Lost Shore and The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx into that story event though they were not technically part of the so-called "Living Story" and though at least the Halloween and Wintersday events might show up again in some form or another. 117.120.18.131 05:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I added SotMK and Lost Shores, reviewing Tixx (there's actually very little story or development) and any other information that is reasonable to add to the others. Considering they've been referenced in later releases, and I was asked to add them, I'm considering all the releases post-launch to be part of the Living World. Vahkris (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

State of the Page

I am now satisfied with the page, so if anyone has any ideas about how to further edit it feel free to do so Indigo121 (talk) 11:16, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

We should stick this on Living World since the page doesn't have much content itself.--Relyk ~ talk < 13:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The only real content that could go on the Living World page is a listing of releases and what happened, so this works well. I was thinking also that we might put the summaries on each release's page, and then use dpl to duplicate it over to the Living World page, so someone only looking at the release page has it there as well, but either way. Vahkris (talk) 14:00, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

In addition, how detailed and long do we want these summaries? I ask because I've written my own summaries as well which include more details and are in a different style, but adding those in would make them significantly longer. That was always the difficulty with adding a summary...it's hard to get across the story without going into a significant amount of detail. Vahkris (talk) 20:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Dates

Where did you get the dates entered on the page? Vahkris (talk) 14:02, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

References

I think we need to add references (either turning the words into links for the source or adding references normally with <ref></ref><references/>. We should actually be putting references in some way whenever we have lore articles, since players need to know where the various bits of info come from and that we're not just making stuff up. Vahkris (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Environment Evolution

I think something like Environment evolution could be useful, in almost every LW release there is something different, e.g. Destruction of the Lighthouse in LA after the Karka Invasion, or the progress of the rebuilding of the statue at the Lion's Court etc etc --Landon144 (talk) 07:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

"Environment evolution" made me giggle a little. the "Character evolution" and "Player Involvement" are also ridiculous section names for something that should be in prose or simple notes.--Relyk ~ talk < 16:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The split was due to a desire to separate the story from what players actually did. I would have just combined it all into the same section. Vahkris (talk) 13:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Other reason I felt a split would be good was it allows new players or returning players to track the big progression of the story at a glance, without reading every detail on what happened Indigo121 (talk) 19:57, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

/u/Plagiarised's summary on reddit

There's an incredible and very detailed summary of the living world story on reddit by /u/Plagiarised. As Stéphane Lo Presti suggested, I went ahead and asked him for permission to use it on the wiki, which he gave. Now, I wonder, should we:

• put it on this page instead of the current, lately less and less detailed, summary,
• make a new page for it
• or not actually put it on the wiki in the end and just link to it from some pages, with the risk that the original document might eventually be deleted?

08:50, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say we should start by converting the document to wikitext using headers and footnotes where appropriate, then add in the things we have that the summary doesn't have using a similar format, then at the bottom link an archived version of the document as reference material. Psycho Robot (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Done - or at least, made a start. It took a fair amount of time, and I tried to correct any obvious spelling or grammar errors on the way through, but there are quite a few left in there as well as factual inaccuracies. Someone with an eye for detail like Konig should look over it before it gets put into mainspace. --Santax (talk · contribs) 16:44, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Reverse chronologica

I am new to both Guild Wars and this wiki but wouldn't the article be more useful in revers chronological order? Tharkon (talk) 02:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, particularly because Releases is in reverse chronological order. 02:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Summary box

The story summary box links to non-existing pages that do exist as of now. 'Story so far...' can be linked to the movement of the world article (or we'll have to write a GW1 summary on the GW2 wiki), personal story has its own page and of course all the three novels have their own page too. Unfortunately, I am too stupid to know how to fix this. Qiff (talk) 08:43, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I've changed it, is the template as it currently stands what you had in mind? And for future reference, it can be edited at {{Story summaries nav}} :) --Santax (talk · contribs) 11:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Article name

→ moved from Talk:Living World summary/Season 1

Can we do something about the title to make it not be a subpage? I really hate subpages for such things; they add a hierarchy where no real hierarchy exists. What do you think about a simple “Living World Season 1”, or “Living World Season 1 summary”? poke | talk 23:37, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Moved the summaries now. poke | talk 15:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

What defines Season 1?

On the official releases page they seem to classify Season 1 into two separates groups: episodes and special events. So while technically the website identifies both as season 1, it does make a distinction between things that pertain to the story and things that don't. As such, should we consider removing the Halloween, Wintersday, SAB, Lost Shores and Tequatl Rising from the Season 1 Living Story and instead classifying those as special events? Aqua (talk) 00:40, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

If you further look at the release page. You will see a grayish border all around the releases from October 2012 up to the March 18 2014 release. So while they were not episodic in nature (Also releases no likely to be converted to the new system if I were to guess) They are indeed part of Season 1 they also did add to the story of Season 1. Now if you look at Feature pack and Festival of the four winds you will fine that they have their own separate boarders apart from Season 2. Thus indicating that they are not part of Season 2. If you want to make your argument for removal from the Living World Season 2 summary page you are welcome to do so here.Anzenketh (talk) 01:02, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Festival of the Four Winds is a special event, it only gets to be in its own top-level box because it's between seasons. We should probably treat all special events as not part of any season. —Dr Ishmael 01:14, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

However there is some story with the special events in Season 1. If you exclude them would you be removing part of the story. Anzenketh (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I know Tequatl getting stronger added to the Season 1 story, but did the Hallowe'en, Wintersday or SAB updates involve the story? I think the two Hallowe'ens just contributed to a Mad King Thorn storyline, which could be its own article if separated from the living world. --Rognik (talk) 07:18, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Haloween has it's own storyline. There were not big story elements to Season 1 in the storyline. However there were some. Mostly moment and dialogue out in the world. Anzenketh (talk) 13:11, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

FotFW contributed to the main storyline, too, in the same ways that you mentioned. However, the releases page makes it clear that it's not part of season 2. —Dr Ishmael 13:45, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

So I guess the question is. Do we want to include them if they contribute to the main story line or do it based upon if it is a episodic release or not. I think for the Player written summaries we should include if they contribute to the main story. Anzenketh (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Living Season 1 Movie

While ArenaNet has made a small Living Season 1 recap it doesn't really do the story justice nor inspire any connection to the characters we get to know better in the season which can be jarring to new Tyrians going from the personal story to LS2. It doesn't look like they're planning to bring back LS1 in a more comprehensive way so...

I found this excellent fan made movie of LS1 that I feel best represents the events that occurred (To me it's the closest I've felt to re-experiencing it) which new Tyrians might appreciate seeing. It includes a lot of details, cutscenes, conversations, and little things that made LS1 special.

I was wondering if it might be worth adding or even embedding it into the wiki page since not everyone likes to read through the entire story and people will be more likely to find it if it's on the summary page. What does everyone think?

Complete Living Season 1 Movie

Fay Everdunes (talk) 09:38, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry but no can do, as we don't allow specific/direct links to YouTube on article pages unless it's Anet's official account. We do, however, have a template that sends users to a YouTube search for the content of the page via {{YouTube search}}. It allows users to pick which video they want to watch, so if somebody wants a recap but doesn't want to sit through a 3 hour video(that movie is lovely but it's very long), they have options. The trick here is if people wanted to get a video recap of Living World Season 1, I doubt they'd come here, they'd go straight to YouTube, so to be honest even if we used the template here, I doubt it'd be used. - Do_odleplex 20:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

So I'm not ready to comment on the actual question, as I want to watch the video first (and actually I'd been meaning to watch that exact video anyway, as I noticed Gaile talking about how well-done it was in a reddit thread the other week). But I put this up on RFC based on an e-mail Fay sent me wondering about this, and for right now I want to respond specifically to Doodle's objection.

The general formatting guidelines are exactly that: guidelines. They are not laws that prevent us from doing what makes the best sense for an individual article or subject matter. The 'no fan youtube links' guideline comes from an issue with jumping puzzle guides back around release, when everyone was wanting their particular guide video to be the guide video for that JP, and ultimately the wiki is better off just cutting off the whole thing by not linking any particular one. If it serves the best interest of the wiki to make an exception here, there's no question that we can make an exception. Therefore what should be commented on is whether a link to this video serves the interests of the wiki.

And I personally don't have an answer to that yet. Like I said, I want to actually watch the video first, or at least a significant portion of it. But either way I think it's worth a discussion. - Tanetris (talk) 21:10, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I somewhat agree. Every time a "What happened in Season One?" thread pops up on Reddit, this video is recommended, and it usually hits the spot. With the further approval from Gaile, my vote is - sure, stick it in. It's the only "playthrough" of S1 in video format that's actually good, so linking it on the wiki can only be helpful. —Ventriloquist 21:16, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd prefer to use the template. Yes I've seen the video, and yes, it's lovely, but I honestly preferred the shorter clips I found on youtube. I didn't need to sit through a 3 hour video to catch up on everything, I could watch the videos and not have to worry about where I left off in one very long video. - Do_odleplex 21:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Here is the Reddit thread from when the video was originally posted. It contains some comments from Anet staff and other content creators. J.Tesla (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, I appreciate everyone debating this. I understand your objection Doodle. The thing is, if ArenaNet put the entire Living Season 1 together again it probably would amount to about 3 hours of play time (At least if you took the time to pay attention to all details). So really, while 3 hours is long, it does neatly cover the entire season. I also enjoyed the more comedic intervals with Hobotron and Kookoochoo which really helped make the movie feel less long. People can also take a break and come back to watch it again later. When I watched it, I watched it in two parts. Maybe we could contact the video maker to provide timestamps or we could add timestamp links to the Wiki page itself? Maybe we could even add timestaps to each episode's summary so people can quickly jump to that specific part of the movie only.

Additionally we could still add the YouTube search functionality with it for those who want a quick link to do their own searches but if we were to add time stamps to individual sections I do not think this would be necessary. I did however notice when toying with the YouTube Search command that the movie didn't show up when clicking the link. Why, I'm not sure? I think possibly because of the forced Guild Wars 2 in quotation marks. Regardless, I just think it would really improve the QoL of the summary page. I'm constantly running into new people who want to know more about LS1 but don't really know where to begin to search for the best videos, and really, if you haven't played the season I can see how that would be a challenge. The written summary is great but a video is a much better representation of what happened and a far more immersive experience. People jumping into LS2 now will not have grown a connection to the characters introduced in LS1 which I think is to the detriment to the story as a whole. Providing a video to watch would really help a lot. Maybe someone could ask Gaile or someone else at Anet whether they approve of adding this Movie to the summary page? Maybe they could even add a link to it on the official website or in-game at the recap NPC because the current recap is just not sufficient at all -Fay (talk) 02:25, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I think it's because the video itself is named "Living Season 1" instead of "Living World Season 1" which is the name of the page is why it doesn't show up when you use the template. However it does seem if you drop the "Guild Wars 2" part you get more results, so maybe the template could/should be tweaked? - Do_odleplex 02:41, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I've stated my thoughts concerning direct links to youtube videos on the Devourer talk page and I'll repeat them here. "My metric for what I'm comfortable with on the wiki is rather simple: Factual density and accuracy; minimal speculation; ease of accessibility. I think this video conveys a lot of solid information in a manner which our text based format cannot."

Examples of videos which do not meet my threshold are:

• Life on Tyria 03: The Giant Sloths - which openly relies on a hefty amount of speculation.
• GW2 Sharkmaw Caverns Jumping Puzzle Tutorial - which is one of many equally good guides, and giving the user of the wiki a search link instead of a direct link is doing them a favour.

Our focus is to provide the users of the wiki with the best information possible. Given the sheer variety of formats information can exist in, we've gotten used to making judgment calls in how to best present it. Sometimes it's tables or lists; exposition or bullets; links to articles or to other wikis. If one video can stand above others in helping those who are looking for information on a topic, let's link to it. (NB: I haven't assessed this particular video). G R E E N E R 09:22, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I have now watched the video, and I'll say I'm kinda torn about it.

In its favor, it's definitely comprehensive, and while there are some polish issues I could nitpick here and there (some slightly off audio cuts, slight disjointedness here and there inserting backstory narration for a couple of the important NPCs), it's probably the most ambitious project of its sort for the subject matter and succeeds a lot more than it falls short. There's also the simple fact that it's already reasonably popular among the community, so it's not like the wiki would be getting used as a promotion tool.

On the other hand, I don't know that this is the singular stand-out way to get across the information in video form. Particularly given its length, I suspect other, shorter videos that either only tackle a portion of the season 1 story at a time or summarize the overall story in a more highlighted fashion are likely to be preferred by most (but not all) users.

The major thing that's giving me pause in saying let's just put a {{YouTube search|Season 1 recap}} in the external link section and call it a day is that for some reason this video does not appear in that search, yet if you remove the quotation marks around guild wars 2, it's the very first result. Which makes no sense to me whatsoever when the phrase guild wars 2 appears in the video's title. All I can think is that youtube search does not handle quotation marks appropriately, so I'm wondering if removing those from the template would break anything.

Overall, my conclusions are 1: I definitely want a youtube search box, and I'm actually going to add that as soon as I finish this talk page post. 2: I lean toward removing the quotation marks around "guild wars 2" in the youtube search template, but am not going to do that unilaterally without more opinions. 3: If we don't change the youtube search template, I think we certainly should add the specific link to this video as well, as I would rather people who are looking for something that comprehensive be able to find it than not. 4: If we do change the youtube search template, I still slightly lean toward including a specific link to this video as well, mostly for its notability as a community project.

That's my four cents. - Tanetris (talk) 14:46, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Removing the quotes amounts to us asking ourselves, "Are we okay with more false-positives while the youtube algorithm refines itself, if it means ensuring we can eventually find what we want?" I'm on the fence about this change, but I believe people are good at ignoring the irrelevant when searching.

As for the movie, I now realize I've watched this particular one, and even passed it on to others. I don't see any other movies coming out like it on that scale, and I agree with Tanetris that the community project aspect is in its favour. I'm for adding it along with the youtube template. G R E E N E R 17:14, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Would the search result in misleading/wrong results? I can't imagine how many videos on "Weyandt's Revenge" YouTube has that aren't related to Guild Wars 2. For the more generic searches or names, yeah, but I think we're in the clear for the most part. —Ventriloquist 17:37, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

If Fay's video has been endorsed by ArenaNet, linking it will be fine. -Chieftain Alex 19:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Implying that directly-linked information should be acknowledged as accurate or canon by Anet? Or that it is not using Anet assets for monetary gain unless it's been given the okay? I'm just curious what you mean here. G R E E N E R 19:58, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I meant to check last night but passed out. There are some youtube searches that are going to come up wrong without "Guild Wars 2" and are currently using the template: Winter Wonderland, Flute, Rapids, Hard Boiled, and Every Piece Matters, Musical Lute, Musical Harp, Bone Pick, The Floor is Lava, Go for the Gold, and The Golden Chicken. Additionally Not So Secret and Bell Choir Ensemble for the most part show the right results, but have some other stuff mixed in without the "GW2" par. Other than those I listed, if you drop "Guild Wars 2" text, the rest of the searches are fine. Perhaps the template could be changed to have "Guild Wars 2" be optional? - Do_odleplex 19:48, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I just ran "guild wars 2" Winter Wonderland and guild wars 2 Winter Wonderland through a private browser and ended up with nearly the same results. To be clear, Tanetris was pointing out the odd effect of using quotation marks vs. no quotation marks. The phrase guild wars 2 should be kept. G R E E N E R 23:38, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Any updates on what is planned for this page? I forgot that I made this suggestion but checking in on it now I don't see any changes to the page, don't see a search box either. With it concerning such a big part of the game content, would it be worth asking Anet if they'd support embedding or linking this movie? Fay (talk) 22:00, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Red link in Dragon Bash section

The red link is [[Tassi box]], and from what I can find out about Magister Tassi that could be a Candy-Powered Matter Meter Mk2. I never played Season 1 so I won't touch it, but could somebody else check that out? Thanks ~~TiffanySmith.8216 17:22, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

So I pulled up some youtube videos. During Every Piece Matters when you "take a Tassi box" you get an Investigation Kit in your inventory. So I'm linking to that. Konig (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Possible hyperlink error

Hey guys!This is my first time in the wiki so my apologies if I am not doing this right. I believe there is an error under Shadow of the Mad King category,the hyperlink of King Thorn's another wife is linked to her father Seamarshal Bennu's profile. Eternatus (talk) 09:19, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the link is there for the dialogue section and talk about Zola, Thorn's 5th wife. Though it does have a colon after it for some reason and has been that way since it was added in 2014. I'm just gonna make the minor changes and leave it the way it is since the dialogue for the collection is there. Dak393 (talk) 10:34, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Story section - OG vs Rerelease

So, despite all the original releases being still canon (though some of the information is slightly changed in the rerelease), I think we should probably move the original Story section and the summaries to a subpage and the main page should list the rereleases only. It should absolutely not get removed or rewritten, but at the same time it might be confusing having it on the same page. Not absolutely sure though, any thoughts or ideas? ~Sime 17:01, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I think that's a good idea. We don't want people getting confused as to the current release order or changes, but it's important to keep a record of how it was originally when first released. - Wolf Sabian Wolf Sabian (talk) 17:39, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree as well. It's weird having things that haven't happened (or haven't been shown/covered) (in the rerelease) being interwoven with things that did. Nightsky (talk) 21:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

In a general sense I'm on the fence overall. I do think this page needs rewriting as its high level of detail was originally because it was inaccessible, making it lengthier than other story summaries despite being shorter in length per episode. However, I dislike the notion of hiding the non-returned content just because it didn't return as it negates the original purpose of this page that led to other story summary pages. Additionally, the return stuff has things changed - Episodes 1 and 4 are missing a bit of stuff, while Episodes 2 and 3 have both missing and new stuff for its summary.

My biggest worry is that by moving non-returned story arcs (e.g., The Lost Shores) and putting it next to the old versions of returned content (e.g., Flame and Frost), that it implies they're all not canon, despite devs confirming the missing story arcs are 100% still canon. Konig (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Well Konig, I had asked you for the sources on the dev statements (I know they exist but I cannot find them myself), so that would be included to prevent any misunderstanding. Before I move anything, though, should we also archive the festival releases and just keep the main page strictly story from the journal, or keep the festivals and such on the main page too? My idea would be keep them, and just add a note under their header "This festival release was only available during x and y", especially since the festivals are referenced in the story itself. ~Sime 15:37, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Source that events skipped in LWS1Return happened. Magnus, Kiel, and Faren also reference the events in the story (though I think for Kiel and Faren it is only referenced if you did it originally, and Magnus treats it like the PC wasn't there).

I was thinking on this the other day as I was reworking the Releases/Overview section as I was going to rewrite the returned story sections, and realized that Season 3, Season 4, and Season 5 articles all include side story, festivals (specifically new content for those festivals), etc. story content that happened during the release. It made me even more hesitant to alter the non-returning stuff. I think it's the same level of "confusion" to players for these sections to be included / removed and should be considered as well - if kept then Season 2 should get updated, and DragonBash's updates added to IBS page, but if not then these sections should be removed / archived from all four of the pages. Konig (talk) 20:31, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Something like this? User:Doodleplex/Sandbox 6 I think I mocked up the idea but forgot to propose it or something? If so, big fan of the idea. - Do_odleplex 20:47, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Uh no Doodle, that's not what the dicussion is about. ~Sime 20:53, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I thought you were proposing for consistency on the wiki with the living world releases matching expansion releases and having a sub page for the story and the main page being an overview of the content. Well, then sure move the historical stuff off to a subpage, fine with me. - Do_odleplex 21:06, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I mean consistency is good and that mockup seems fine, it is just not the topic of this talk, which is how to handle the re-release of S1 and the story summaries. ~Sime 21:07, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

To add some more ideas, how would it be if the things only available in the original release be moved to a subpage, but their headings remain on the main page with a {{main}} to them; with the sections also in the rerelease likewise also having their headings with links to the main page on the subpage? So e.g. something like in the following table, just split onto the two pages:

Click expand to show the table:

Original release	Rerelease
Shadow of the Mad King Primary article: [[<Rerelease page>#Shadow of the Mad King]]	Shadow of the Mad King <Summary here>
The Lost Shores Primary article: [[<Rerelease page>#The Lost Shores]]	The Lost Shores <Summary here>
Wintersday: The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx <Summary here>	Wintersday: The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx Primary article: [[<Original release page>#Wintersday: The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx]]
Flame and Frost <Summary here>	Flame and Frost Primary article: [[<Original release page>#Flame and Frost]]

Alternatively, how would be having the original release and the rerelease side by side in a invisible table (like e.g. above), with gaps and or content on both sides where applicable, on the main page? (Note that the headings aren't formated as headings here in order to not balloon the TOC.) Nightsky (talk) 15:21, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Rather than a subpage, I think hiding behind a collapsable tab with a note up top would be best. I created a sandbox here to show what I mean as a draft. I haven't yet rewritten any of the sections in the sandbox, but I'd like to simplify and fix the returned stuff to be more in line with later story summary pages (since it's replayable, no need to go into excruciating detail or have those footnotes mixed in with reference links). Konig (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2022 (UTC)